They arrived at last in the Eternal City, having taken a final run of
many hours without a break. But the Pope was still to seek.
Leaving the exhausted Brum in bed, Zillah drove the first morning to
the Vatican, where Brum said he lived, and asked to see him.
A glittering Swiss Guard stared blankly at her, and directed her by
dumb show to follow the stream of people--the pilgrims, Zillah told
herself. She was made to scrawl her name, and, thanking God that she
had acquired that accomplishment, she went softly up a gorgeous flight
of steps, and past awe-inspiring creatures in tufted helmets, into the
Sistine Chapel, where she wondered at people staring ceilingwards
through opera-glasses, or looking downwards into little mirrors.
Zillah also stared up through the gloom till she had a crick in the
neck, but saw no sign of the Pope. She inquired of the janitor whether
he was the Pope, and realized that English was, after all, not the
universal language. She returned gloomily to see after Brum, and to
consider her plan of campaign.
"The great doctor was not at home," she said. "We must wait a little."
"And yet you made us hurry so through everything," grumbled Brum.
Brum remained in bed while Zillah went to get some lunch in the
dining-room. A richly dressed old lady who sat near her noticed that
she was eating Lenten fare, like herself, and, assuming her a
fellow-Catholic, spoke to her, in foreign-sounding English, about the
blind boy whose arrival she had observed.
Zillah asked her how one could get to see the Pope, and the old lady
told her it was very difficult.
"Ah, those blessed old times before 1870!--ah, the splendid ceremonies
in St. Peter's! Do you remember them?"
Zillah shook her head. The old lady's assumption of spiritual
fellowship made her uneasy.
But St. Peter's stuck in her mind. Brum had already told her it was
the Pope's house of prayer. Clearly, therefore, it was only necessary
to loiter about there with Brum to chance upon him and extort his
compassionate withdrawal of the spell of the Evil Eye. With a
culminating inspiration she bought a photograph of the Pope, and
overcoming the first shock of hereditary repulsion at the sight of the
large pendent crucifix at his breast, she studied carefully the
Pontiff's face and the Papal robes.
Then, when Brum declared himself strong enough to get up, they drove
to St. Peter's, the instruction being given quietly to the driver so
that Brum should not overhear it.
It was the first time Zillah had ever been in a cathedral; and the
vastness and glory of it swept over her almost as a reassuring sense
of a greater God than she had worshipped in dingy synagogues. She
walked about solemnly, leading Brum by the hand, her breast swelling
with suppressed sobs of hope. Her eyes roved everywhere, searching for
the Pope; but at moments she well-nigh forgot her disappointment at
his absence in the wonder and ghostly comfort of the great dim spaces,
and the mysterious twinkle of the countless lights before the bronze
canopy with its golden-flashing columns.
"Where are we, mother?" said Brum at last.
"We are waiting for the doctor."
"But where?"
"In the waiting-room."
"It seems very large, mother."
"No, I am walking round and round."
"There is a strange smell, mother,--I don't know what--something
religious."
"Oh, nonsense!" She laughed uneasily.
"I know what it smells like: cold marble pillars and warm coloured
windows."
Her blood froze at such uncanny sensibility.
"It is the smell of the medicines," she murmured. Somehow his
divination made it more difficult to confess to him.
"It feels like being in St. Paul's or the Abbey," he persisted, "when
I used to shut my eyes to hear the organ better." He had scarcely
ceased speaking, when a soft, slow music began to thrill with life the
great stone spaces.
Brum's grasp tightened convulsively: a light leapt into the blind
face. Both came to a standstill, silent. In Zillah's breast rapture
made confusion more confounded; and as this pealing grandeur, swelling
more passionately, uplifted her high as the mighty Dome, she forgot
everything--even the need of explanation to Brum--in this wonderful
sense of a Power that could heal, and her Hebrew benediction flowed
out into sobbing speech:--
"'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest the eyes of the
blind.'"
But Brum had fainted, and hung heavy on her arm.